Smart Home products compromising home safety

The dangers of smart home technology are highlighted in a report by VPNmentor.

Smart technology could be making your home less secure.

Smart technology is taking the world by storm and is growing month by month, and with massive global brands such as Google and Amazon leading the charge, this certainly looks like a trend that won’t be slowing down any time soon. These devices will make their way into almost every home over the next few years so, it’s important to ask how secure they actually are.

VPNmentor has created a report on some of the most common Smart Home devices, and the results aren’t looking promising. Employing ‘white hat’ hackers to ethically hack devices to test their security, some glaring security flaws were found in the following devices:

Amazon Echo

Ring Doorbell

Samsung Smart Camera

August Smart Lock

Kwikset Smart Lock

Smart Plug

If you own one of these devices then all is not lost, there are several steps you can take to ensure the safety of your devices. Ensure the device’s firmware is up to date and make sure your device isn’t tampered with physically by knowing who can have physical access to it.

Perhaps most importantly, always make sure that you are getting your device from a trusted source. A second-hand product or one that has seen access from a third party could have been tampered with, and there will be very little or no physical evidence of this at all.